SIRATYST (Stuff I Read And Thought You Should Too). "The proletariat has no other weapon but organization. ...[G]round down by forced labor for capital, constantly thrust back to ...utter destitution, savagery, and degeneration, the proletariat can, and inevitably will, become an invincible force only through its ideological unification on the principles of Marxism ..into an army of the working class." LENIN
"The working class has no country." MARX
Meanwhile, those who expose the crimes of Israel are branded as “anti-Semites” in an exercise that twists that term beyond recognition into a calumny against anyone who expresses the disgust and anger felt by people all over the world, including millions of Jews, over the ongoing war crimes in Gaza. Indeed, this definition is itself anti-Semitic, identifying Jews everywhere with the criminal policies of a state that rules in the interest of a narrow Israeli financial and corporate oligarchy.
The vast gulf separating the indifference of US imperialism toward these crimes and its “horror” and invocation of “human rights” in relation to Xinjiang proves once again that all morality is class morality. The moral indignation of imperialist operatives like Blinken is activated only when it is needed to justify wars of aggression and plunder and advance the interests of the US financial oligarchy.
That the filthy banner of “human rights” previously raised to justify wars in the Balkans, the Middle East and North Africa is now being unfurled as part of the preparations for “great power” conflict with China and Russia is a measure of the extreme tensions and dangers in the global situation.
Pro-Palestinian supporters in New York marched near the Israeli consulate. [Eduardo Munoz/ Reuters]MORE SOLIDARITY WITH PALESTINE PICS:https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2021/5/12/in-pictures-9
Israel launched air strikes against Gaza, the besieged Palestinian enclave, killing 24 people including children.
Militants
had earlier fired a few rockets at southern Israel and the Jerusalem
area, in a day characterized by massive violence against the
Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem.
Israel’s military
announced it had beefed up its forces on its border with Gaza and was
suspending a major drill to prepare for a possible escalation.
Palestinians
evacuate a wounded man during clashes with Israeli security forces at
the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City Monday, May 10,
2021. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Earlier in the
morning, 1,000 security forces stormed the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in
East Jerusalem as worshippers were praying, firing stun grenades, tear
gas and rubber bullets, while snipers took up positions on rooftops,
injuring more than 330 Palestinians. More than 700 Palestinians have
been injured in just a few days by Israeli security forces in Jerusalem
and across the West Bank.
Police locked hundreds of worshippers
inside the mosque, prevented doctors and medical teams from entering the
compound and attacked and beat up those who sought to help the injured.
They forced their way into the compound’s health clinic, where they
sprayed pepper gas and lobbed stun grenades at those receiving treatment
there.
The storming of the mosque, the third holiest site in
Islam, provoked angry demonstrations around the country, including in
the northern Arab city of Umm al-Fahm and the nearby Wadi Ara, as well
as in Jaffa which has witnessed protests over the past week against
plans to take over Palestinian-owned houses for a Jewish yeshiva.
The
crackdown on Jerusalem Day—the anniversary of Israel’s illegal
annexation of East Jerusalem, captured from Jordan in the 1967 War—ahead
of the planned Flags March by Israel’s settler groups and far right
forces through Arab neighbourhoods, was another provocation designed to
precipitate a war with the Palestinians.
It was by far the most
violent crackdown in the weeks of mounting tensions and bloody
repression by Israel’s security forces since the start of Ramadan on
April 12, amid protests against land grabs by Israeli settlers,
settlement expansion, and the planned eviction of scores of Palestinians
in Sheikh Jarrah, north of Jerusalem’s Old City. A factor in the
explosive state of social relations has been the impact of the pandemic
that has left thousands of young people without work.
The planned
eviction is part of the government’s broader process of judaicising the
city, making it impossible for the Palestinians to ever set up their own
mini-state with some part of East Jerusalem as its capital. Far right
legislators, including Religious Zionism chairman Bezalel Smotrich and
Itamar Ben-Gvir of Jewish Power have led their supporters through Sheikh
Jarrah, taunting the Palestinians, chanting “death to Arabs”. Smotrich
called on the right-wing parties in talks with opposition leader Yair
Lapid, who heads Yesh Atid and is trying to cobble together a coalition
to replace Netanyahu, to halt all talks with Mansour Abbas and his
United Arab List, denouncing him as a “terror” supporter.
On
Thursday night, more than 100 Palestinians were wounded, with 21 needing
hospitalization, after hundreds of far right Jewish Israelis marched
through Jerusalem’s streets and confronted Palestinians. On Friday
night, more than 200 Palestinians were injured, of whom 88 had to be
taken to hospital, after several hundred riot police stormed the al-Aqsa
mosque compound, provoking bloody confrontations with worshippers.
There were violent clashes at Sheikh Jarrah as several hundred
worshippers went to show their solidarity with residents.
On
Saturday night, 80 people were injured, including a one-year-old, when
clashes erupted outside the Old City, while on Sunday, 14 people had to
be treated for injuries after riot police attacked Palestinians
protesting the Sheikh Jarrah evictions.
There have also been
demonstrations against Israel’s brutal crackdown in East Jerusalem and
in support of the Sheikh Jarrah families in a number of Arab towns and
villages in Israel, as well as in the port city of Haifa and the
northern city of Nazareth, and in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank
that were met with heavy handed repression.
These
demonstrations in the last few days of mainly young Palestinians mark
an unprecedented involvement of Israel’s Palestinian citizens in
anti-government protests. It is a spontaneous movement, increasingly
alienated from its traditional leaders—the Fatah-dominated Palestinian
Authority, Hamas in Gaza and the Arab leaders in Israel.
On
Sunday, flatly rejecting international condemnation of the planned
evictions of Palestinians from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, Netanyahu
declared Israel “firmly rejects” pressure not to build in Jerusalem.
Turning truth on its head, he proclaimed that Israel would not allow any
extremist element—meaning the Palestinians—to undermine peace in
Jerusalem, “We will impose law and order aggressively and responsibly.
We will continue to safeguard freedom of worship for all religions but
will not allow violent riots.” “I say to the terror groups: Israel will
respond with force to any act of aggression from the Gaza Strip,” he
added.
He refused multiple entreaties from international figures
as well as his own security officials to postpone the Jerusalem Day
Flags March, limit the number of participants and change the route, so
as not to enter the al-Aqsa compound. He and Public Security Minister
Amir Ohana insisted on letting the march go ahead without any changes to
the route, with the police offering thousands of officers to escort the
march. Netanyahu defended the security forces, praising their “just
struggle” and commending the “steadfastness that the Israeli police and
our security forces are currently displaying.”
On Monday
afternoon, barely an hour before the march was due to start, the
organisers announced they were calling it off telling the police they
were ceding responsibility to them even as thousands of religious and
ultra-nationalist youth were assembling. This came shortly after the
authorities, reportedly in response to an order from Netanyahu, decided
to reroute the march away from the Old City, including Damascus Gate and
the Muslim Quarter, in Palestinian East Jerusalem.
It was at this
time that Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated group that controls
Gaza, which has been subject since 2007 to an illegal blockade by Israel
and latterly by Egypt, issued “an ultimatum until 6pm” to Israel to
withdraw its security forces from the al-Aqsa mosque compound and Sheikh
Jarrah. As the ultimatum expired, the Israeli military activated
sirens, the Knesset was evacuated, and the Flags March dispersed after
reports of rocket fire in the Jerusalem area.
Netanyahu called for
a national security cabinet meeting in preparation for increasing
turmoil ahead of Eid al-Fitr that marks the end of Ramadan on Wednesday
evening, May 12.
Football players of the Chilean Club Deportivo Palestino express their solidarity with the people of Jerusalem and all of Palestine by wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh.
